Posted by 22.9 miles.
This is it. Day 1 on another epic adventure. I have mixed feelings of both nervousness and excitement. It rained over night and conditions for the next few days are mild which will help in this first desert section. High cloud cover but nasty winds on the horizon. Expecting 40km winds overnight.
Mild conditions for hiking is good. It means less water consumption and less to be carried on my back. I’m starting out with 3 litres for this first section. The only options to refill are some strategically placed water caches maintained by the CDT Coalition and the odd cow trough if desperate.
All passengers crammed into a single vehicle began the game of speed getting to know each others. Questions and answers flew around.
It was an early start from the hotel to meet up with the CDT shuttle at 6:15am where I was joined by 6 others for the 3 hour drive to the border and Crazy Cook Monument. Last minute checks of emails and socials were done before expecting to drop out of service for quite a while. Access to the monument has been improved over the past few months with construction of the border wall. Until very recently the border between Mexico and the US was a five strand barbed wire fence.
We arrived at the monument, undertook final gear checks and took the obligatory photos at the start. I left the monument at 9:15am.
Finding pace a suitable pass we started to spread out, a few of us falling in a similar rhythm, Frenchman Etienne (36), Texan Jay (48) and 75 year Chowdah continuing to leapfrog each other as each one of us would pull off to the side of trail to a photo of something to caught our interest. Everything was a first for us. First cactus, first snake encounter, first of many kinds of desert flowers and first mile markers.
The trail was great moving between single track with gravelled surface, some access roads and dry creek beds of washes.
The first aim for the day was water cache number 1 at mile marker 14.3. Everyone is loaded up with at least 4 litres of water until we get a feel for how much will be consumed. This will gauge on where to next and where to camp. But before getting to the cache lunch was needed. Etienne and myself kept leap frogging and formulated a plan to meet up at a marker on our maps know as Big Tree. Shade is such a commodity out there that this one tree gets its own marker. It did not disappoint. This one single tree on the edge of a wash provided perfect shade in an otherwise treeless landscape.
We had just finished lunched packed when Chowdah arrived. Having found some shade back down the trail for lunch, Chowdah moves on and we wait for Jay for while before having to move on ourselves.
We reach Cache 1 at 1600. Water is topped up but it’s too early to camp. To do so would mean baking in a hot tent for several hours until the sun set. Jay catches up to us at the cache, suffering some blisters already. This will be his first long distance hike. Etienne has completed the Te Araroa and Chowdah the PCT. Jay is eager to get in a 20 mile day and stay on our tail.
A plan is forged to press onto an old windmill site to camp for the night, another 9 miles ahead. We all start off trying to beat the dark. At some point Jay drops off the back of the pack and is not seen for the rest of the day. At around mile 20, Chowdah calls it, finding a patch of dirt off the side if the trail for his tent.
Etienne pulls ahead of me as my pace slows. I push until just before dark reaching the old windmill and settle in for night. It is going to be blustery overnight. 22 miles is a solid first day. I would have been happy with anything between 15 to 20 miles. I’ll have to careful not to go too hard straight out of the gate.
Mick Beckers 